Sri Lankaka Club Symposium - Bahrain Toastmaster Magazine Vol 07 | Page 5

Art of Writing Humorous Speeches
Many Centuries ago, after seeing the marvelous sculpture of David, Pope asked the famous artist Michelangelo : “How did you make such a masterpiece?” Michelangelo swiftly replied “ It is simple, I took a stone, then removed all the unnecessary parts, which did not resemble David”. Well, we all know that it is not that simple. But the point I want to make is that unlike in sculpturing, when you write speeches, particularly humorous speeches, you need to work the other way, starting from a small incident, then gradually adding and building your speech. Having said that, there will be a time when you need to review the speech and remove unnecessary parts as well. My success at last 2 club contests could be largely attributed to an Area Humorous contest which I watched about 2 years ago. By dissecting the winning speeches, I realized the difference between a “humorous story” and a “humorous speech”. Before that, I participated in two club contests, first time with a speech on a Russian wedding, secondly on Wikileaks. On both occasions I was out of contention. Now I understand that they are humorous stories rather than speeches. I noticed that some participants in this year’s club contest had the same problems. Therefore I strongly recommend all TMs to witness higher level contests before preparing speeches. There are some people with natural talent, even their appearance on stage make people laugh. Unfortunately, I am not a gifted comedian, so I need to cover that up with good speech content. Generally I believe that writing a good speech can contribute to about 70% of success. Based on my limited experience, I would like to mention about the following areas which are essential for a good speech. 1. Write it: There are people who only write the bullet points and deliver the speeches, while I, as many others, prefer to write the full speech. It helps in many ways, to ensure that the speech value is there, fine tune the speech and most importantly for time management. Through my experience in CC projects, I found that I can speak only 700 words within 7 minutes. So, the writing really helps me to manage the time. 2. Simple plot: Use a real life incident as the basis of your speech before jumping to the internet and then develop around it. When the speech is about you and happening around you, it tends to create more humor among the audience. Few days before the recent contest, I was still searching for a good topic, and then I received a SMS from my Boss stating “My family is complaining” which spontaneously prompted me the idea for my speech. Few days later, I met a friend, who attended the session as a guest. While praising about the whole event, he casually asked “ Is it a true story?”. This shows that the way I developed the story was successful. 3. Search web but use it wisely / personalize: You may find a wealth of humor related to your topic from t ??????????=??????????????????????????????%???????????????????????????????????????????e?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????U??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
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